1763-1789 African American Women in Colonial Virginia

Imagining being transported back to Virginia from 1763 to 1789 my life would have been good being an African American woman because women’s experiences in colonial Virginia differed depending on the gender roles defined by culture, their ethnicity, and their status. Both Indians, black and white women, played an essential part in making Virginia the land it was and what it became (Middlekauf and Robert 2). Colonial Virginia women record begun with Native Americans and gradually included African American women and European women. Survival influenced the role of men and women in colonial years (Norton and Mary 9). Whether black or white, planter’s wife, free or unfree, slaves and servants laboured in tobacco fields. However, unmarried women with land could engage in business similar to men. The colonies started using the lawmaker idea about race and gender during this period to codify two discrete roles for the women of Virginia (Middlekauf and Robert 2). Typically free and white women, also referred to as good wives raised their kids and did domestic work in their homes. The planter elite members alienated themselves from other residents of Virginia with their enslaved labourers, capital and wives who looked after their homes. However, African American women continued to work in the fields alongside their husbands; all women classes became relegated to the private sphere while the husband’s dominated the region.  

Thinking of early Virginia, images that come in mind are men in European clothing trying to cope with the life in Virginia. Women were also there to labour and care for the succeeding generations (Norton and Mary 9). The first Virginians were Native Americans. All women including African American women worked hard through house building, harvesting, planting, taking care of children as well as cooking. The men, on the other hand, did fishing, hunting and planting. Slavery was fully established this time an African Americans had a terrible time with diseases. Men also outnumbered women making it hard for African American women to form families. Slavery institution evolved, and African American women got the same treatment just like the white servants (Middlekauf and Robert 3). The typical African American woman in Virginia was a slave. They were treated as chattels. Some of the African American women could be bought, gambled, traded or sold any time. These women faced various forms of exploitations. Some of them were whipped or even beaten severely. White Virginian women, on the other hand, proffered forgetting slave trade horrors (Sturtz and Linda 24). During this time, whites also accepted a system which was meant to provide labour at their tobacco farm, and this led to the rise of black slaves who replaced white indentured servants in Virginia plantations as the major labour force.

Survival for African American women during this period was a triumph. African Americans suffered and prospered in varying degrees. The first point to make about this period is that women worked hard to grow the economy of Virginia. African American slaves worked hard for least reward. Women worked in the field from morning to evening. Sometimes, African American women even worked after dark (Norton and Mary 10). These women did the same jobs as men. Young children also began to work at the age of thirteen or fourteen years old. These children were expected to work in the field the whole day. When African American women went back home after the sundown, they faced more work like cooking dinner and breakfast preparations. The English thought of the African Americans to be talented people who lived among developed societies due to their accomplishments that made colonization feasible. Also, they had plans on relying on on the natives’ crops and products for trade and survival to pay their bills. To them, the advanced nature of the Indians was an indicator of how the lands they inhabited was full of potential (Middlekauf and Robert 6). They thought of them to be primitive and that their land was poor. In contrast to their view, the Powhatan considered the settlement of the English to be an opportunity to exploit skillfully. To them, the Europeans appeared to be edgy, incompetent and rapacious. Their previous encounters with other communities had been fruitful with their inheritance of overlordships and conquering other communities and tribes (Sturtz and Linda 25). They had controlled relationships in the Bay and saw no reasons for not to continue fulfilling their glory towards the control of the struggling Jamestown colonists.  

British treated African American women as indentured servants and released them after some years. The race-base slavery system replaced this practice. During this period, the English and European colonies dominated Virginia. The Europeans traveled to Africa to capture Africans. African Americans helped colonists in satisfying their need for power and developing their land (Norton and Mary 10). The treatment of Africans Americans by the colonists was completely unjustifiable. Besides, English colonists got educated while the Africans Americans were less technologically advanced in this particular field. Also, the colonialists began their exploration of the foreign world as they begun to settle in Virginia. As they began to explore the foreign world, they found the opposite of what they expected. They found indigenous Americans whom they believe were a new breed of humans. In reality, these were just native Americans. These indigenous Americans were less advanced technologically than the colonialists. The indigenous Americans all worshiped different goods and ate different foods. Colonialists treated them as barbarians because they saw their actions as barbaric. Colonialists captured the indigenous Americans to be used as slaves.

            African American in Virginia suffered great hardship.  Plantation owners in enslavement owned the African Americans’ land. For African American slavery, conditions radically changed after the civil war (Sturtz and Linda 25). African American slaves got freed at last, and the free tribes who remained were herded onto the reservation. Slavery among African American took many forms throughout Virginia. Slavery was common among African Americans. Colonialists purchased African American as part of the slave trade. Many African Americans got enslaved in Virginia, and some of them were sold (Norton and Mary 12). The African American slavery was organized in colonial through Franciscan missions for ten years of native labour. Enslavement of African American occurred through raids. African American slaves worked in the production of cotton and tobacco crops.

African Americans involuntarily arrived in slaves. Captured Africans Americans were to help colonialists in satisfying their need for power and developing their land. At the time of reconstruction, African Americans slaves were far better off politically, socially and economically (Middlekauf and Robert 2). African American slavery emerged from complex factors. The slavery system was strongly correlated with colonialist’s labour, especially for labour-intensive plantation economies.

During this period, both models for a social relations and social hierarchies, gender played an essential role in determining the institution of slavery in Virginia and the construction of racial categories among African Americans (Kerber and Linda 46). However, gender relations in Virginia were transformed by the rise in racial slavery. This included the idea of masculinity. The colonial government in Virginia reinforced its authority by regulating the sexuality of English servants and the labour by making legal differences between African American women and English people. This government never wanted African American to succeed. African American women slavery contributed to the cultural shift (Kerber andLinda 51). African American women worked as slaves, and their jobs were maids. They took care of the white women and helped in cleaning the house around.

Virginia was depicted as a male domain because women had little significance. Women’s presence had little impact during the colonial era in Virginia. English women were allowed to do domestic task out of their self-interest of women loyalty (Norton and Mary 12). African American Women acted as an important figure in enhancing cultural interactions between the Indians and the English. The two communities experienced cultural interactions through trade. Powhatan had a geographical advantage of allowing the English to have settlements along James River (Sturtz and Linda 24). The Indians throughout this region had valued manufactured trade goods brought across the Atlantic. These products helped them in daily activities like farming, hunting, and more so warfare. It made life easier without changing their traditional modes and way of life. Also, the constant dependence of the English towards the Indians also encouraged their cultural interactions. The first settlers in the region had little knowledge about how the Indians survived. It forced them to depend strictly on the Indians for food (Norton and Mary 9). They were compelled to admit the reality of starvation if it were not for the Indians who helped to feed them. Moreover, some people from both sides of the two communities entered into relationships. Several English boys were left to inhabit with the Indian community to enable them to learn their language and culture. Powhatan’s daughter had a role of acting as an intermediary between the English and the Indians in the early years. The relationships brought about strong affectionate that led to the cultural division that later led to marriages. 

           African Americans served as the interface between the English and the Indians. The Creoles knew English and were familiar with the colonialist culture. They also understood how to deal with the Algonquians and knew the geography of the region. Both of the two communities were forced into brokerage roles during trades and taught how to order their fields (Norton and Mary 15). Tisquantum also acted as principal figures in the business alliance and integral members of Plymouth colony. It was important since they enhanced negotiations and translations between the existing governors and the native elders. In return, they made peace with the Indian leaders in the Wampanoag confederation. Tisquantum helped in the survival of the colony since they had figured prominently in the English settlement of the Native Jamestown. Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, was also an intermediary that enhanced the go-between during the early years. Her kidnap to Jamestown, her ultimate conversion into Christianity and marriage to Rolfe enabled the two cultures to interact (Middlekauf and Robert 7). Other settlers like William Claiborne had founded a trading post on Kent Island that stimulated the commencement of a trading partnership with the Susquehannocks. Also, other individuals melted and interacted into either of the population. Although these ties proved to be tenuous, it helped in creating a web of mutuality among the English and the Indians.

              English women helped in the labour of the tobacco which emerged as the most important cash crop for the Jamestown settlers. The women, as well as men, proved their devotion towards their work in tilling, hoeing, harvesting, and warming (Windley and Lathan 69). For the women, this act represented a departure from the existing customary roles in agricultural workers that served as supplementary work in times of harvest and cultivations (Kupperman and Karen, 2014). The women now assumed primary roles in the cultivation of staple foods that required plows unlike their other significant employment role as domestic workers in cleaning, cooking and maintaining the household. Virginia experienced demographic development that rose from the change of tactics by the Indians (Sturtz and Linda 26). The successor of Powhatan strategized on intermarriages between the English and the Indian women. Other counterparts relied on their wives to have access to the title of lands, labour and trading networks.

              Jamestown is depicted as a cooperative venture that involved the native perspectives and the now- native inhabitants. The region had thriving societies that lived along river shores that had an environmentally rich bay (Windley and Lathan 69). The development of Jamestown served as the beginning of the United States. The town existed in an area where the first policies made towards the Native Americans. Jamestown also depicts the existence of peaceful relations that existed between the Natives and the English. Pocahontas also helped save the Jamestown colony from attacks that devastated the town in the most critical moments. Their intermarriage ensured the endurance of peace. The Algonquians also played a role in helping the coastal invaders build a nation and survive during the vulnerable moments (Middlekauf and Robert 7). The existing natives imparted knowledge on their ways of life and survivals that helped the invaders survive their stay and colonize the area. It is now evident that some parties had a role in the building of the Jamestown and the new Virginia. The efforts of the natives and the colonial invaders spearheaded the development of the town during the early years; African American women playing a vital development role.

White settlers also had similar trouble due to warfare, starvation and diseases. African American worked on big plantations despite the dominance by the elite planters, people of colour, children, wives and enslaved women and men continued to influence the meaning of class and race during this period in Virginia (Norton and Mary 16). African American women, on the other hand, came along way. There are so many powerful blacks today because of what African American women went through during the colonial era in Virginia. All these African American women stand and believe they were working hard to make the world a better place for women.

Works Cited

Kerber, Linda K. “The Revolutionary Generation: Ideology, Politics, and Culture in the Early Republic.” The New American History (1990): 31-60.

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800: with a New Preface. Cornell University Press, 1996.

Sturtz, Linda. Within her power: Propertied women in colonial Virginia. Routledge, 2013.

Windley, Lathan A. A profile of runaway slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through 1787. Routledge, 2014.